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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25011091">Ache</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperdream/pseuds/paperdream'>paperdream</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Ink Does Banned Together Bingo 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/F, Hurt No Comfort, Isolation, Loneliness, Post-Season/Series 03, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, i mean with martin getting his lonely on it's basically just the two of them (and sorta helen?), idk it just makes sense to me that basira and melanie might have a Thing while jons in his coma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:41:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>808</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25011091</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperdream/pseuds/paperdream</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Unknowing, there isn't really anyone left for Basira or Melanie except each other.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Basira Hussain &amp; Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Basira Hussain/Melanie King, Georgie Barker &amp; Melanie King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Ink Does Banned Together Bingo 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009029</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Banned Together Bingo 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ache</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this in like thirty minutes on a whim, figured I might as well post it? It's kind of weird and depressing, but I just have a lot of feels about the Archives ladies.</p><p>Banned Together Bingo prompt: Lesbians</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>From the outside, the thing between them almost looks real. They eat lunch together- always have, since starting at the Institute, only back then it was with Tim and Martin, too, all the assistants grouped around the breakroom table trying to distract each other from their shared misery. Daisy even joined them, sometimes, when she wasn't off doing something for Elias. But Tim's dead and Daisy's gone and even the sounds of Jon, holed up in his office eating alone, are gone these days. </p><p>	They eat lunch together, and from the outside it looks like real dates, but both of them know the silent truth that there isn't anyone else left- neither of them is sure when Martin's presence faded from the Archives but it was long before they thought to feel his loss- and they happen in restaurants and parks because they're both desperate for any excuse to leave the confines of the Institute, even for an hour. They shouldn't, it isn't quite safe, the Flesh proved that, but Melanie clings to the fierce front that the things circling them can't scare her out of normal life, and Basira follows her lead. Lets her pretend that the move out of their apartments and into the tunnels below the Institute was motivated by something else, and tries not to worry about the bloodlust that shines in Melanie's eyes whenever she thinks about the things that might try to interrupt their quiet lunches.</p><p>	They share a cot in the tunnels more nights than they don't. Sometimes it's accompanied by bruising kisses, desperately trying to lose their grief and emptiness in each other, but just as often they curl together as a reminder that they aren't completely alone, not yet.</p><p>	Melanie talks to Georgie sometimes, Basira knows, but for all they try to avoid it those conversations are always drawn back to Jon: Georgie still visits him, watches his still body and tells the empty air about the Admiral, her research for the latest episode of What the Ghost, anything that might draw him back from wherever he's gone. If Georgie stops, Jon will be all alone, no visitors waiting for him to wake up or slip away completely. Martin must go to see him too- a world where he's abandoned even the Archivist seems unthinkable- but if he does he slips in and out like a ghost, neither Georgie nor the staff able to attest to his presence. </p><p>	Basira talks to Melanie, and Helen, and the occasional statement giver. She'd always poured her thoughts and worries into Daisy's reassuring presence, but now Daisy is gone and she didn't have any other friendships on the force built to survive being Sectioned and then defecting to the Institute. She tries not to burden Melanie- a significant number of her worries revolve around Melanie herself, the newfound shortness of her temper and the way she'd wielded her knife against the monsters of the Flesh like a part of herself. And so her worries swirl around her head, expressed only in the noises she lets Melanie coax out of her out of Sight in the tunnels. </p><p>	Helen seems to approve of the thing between them, the contradiction of the trappings of romance and sex that should come with "I love you"s but is really only covering their mutual emptiness. That's as far as her support can go, though; the Distortion is not well suited as a sounding board for the woes of human life.</p><p>	They feed off each other, Basira's nauseating loneliness and need to Know and Melanie's rage and alienation, pulling pieces of each other to cover the gaping wounds in their souls and ignoring the way the edges heal wrong. They both know it isn't healthy, but there's nothing else, no one left but the two of them. If Basira sometimes turns expecting to see choppy blonde hair and finds herself surprised by Melanie's black, or if sometimes Melanie grips her so hard the bruises take days to fade, or if the wrong name slips past Basira's lips as they bury themselves in each other, they silently agree never to acknowledge it. </p><p>	And sometimes Basira ponders how they might seem, the restaurant tables for two and the way they sleep in each other's arms unmotivated by lust and the way she feels like she knows Melanie's thoughts almost as well as her own, and a part of her mourns. She'd never needed anyone but Daisy, but she can almost See how, in another life, she and Melanie might have fit together without tearing at their jagged edges and without twin pits of howling loneliness tying them together. Those are usually the nights she pulls Melanie into the tunnels and presses them together, needy and aching. But however close they crush together, skin and skin, the aching never truly goes away.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Comment if you enjoyed! Also consider commenting because as I post this it will be literally my birthday for 29 more minutes.</p><p>Find me on tumblr @inklingofadream</p></blockquote></div></div>
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